Distillates and Doorways
by delightfullyvague
Summary: Chiana goes out for a late night stroll, but someone else is awake.  Chiana/Aeryn, Femslash


**Title:** Distillates and Doorways  
><strong>FandomPairing:** Farscape, Chiana/Aeryn  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> Set between the events of _Terra Firma_ and _Twice Shy_.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> NC-17  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> These characters do not belong to me, they belong to The Jim Henson Company, Hallmark Entertainment, and other PTB. Lyrics in italic belong to Florence Welch et al.  
><strong>AN:** As fond as I am of structure and planning, sometimes characters can still surprise me. I set out to discuss one thing, but ended on a note I was not anticipating. And I loved it. Leave it to the Farscape universe to always keep me guessing, even when I think I'm pulling the strings.

_No light, no light  
>In your bright blue eyes<br>I never knew daylight could be so violent  
>A revelation in the light of day<br>You can't choose what stays and what fades away_

Something was blinking just above her head.

Chiana pried her eyelids open one at a time, shifting them into focus, interpreting the sounds, the signs of life, the signs of trouble. Just a speck of dust catching luminescence, she imagined. And it could've been, because it disappeared upon her waking.

How strange that there was no shouting at this hour (whatever hour this was). There was always shouting.

Her sleep schedule had been frelled for weeks, and never for the right reasons. She had taken to wandering the halls while the others slept, cautioning past their doorways with a lowered stance and an even lower gaze. Each time, she listened for the breathing of deep slumber. It was a comfort to know it could still be managed.

Chiana uncurled her feet from beneath her as she stood and stretched, fingers gliding up her bare ribcage. She sighed; her lovers tended to begrudge her delight in the feel of her own skin, despite their claims to the contrary. It had become a solitary activity over time, something to be indulged in the darkness. A pleasure, though she wouldn't dare attach the word guilty.

Reluctance gripped her toes. Something about the silence raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Extraordinary, she thought, there was something extraordinary happening somewhere, and she had to know.

She dressed and padded out into the corridor.

Each quarter was as predictable and satisfactory as the last. Sound asleep. Some snoring, some fitful, all definitive. She kept her eyes to the floor, half-convinced that the act of staring itself could rouse them. John's open door tempted her inside. She took in the sights: boards covered in indecipherable scrawling, guns broken down into bits of metal, leather after leather after leather in heaps over chairs and across tables. And then there was the man himself, mouth peeled open, kept to one side of the bed with fingers stretched and wound into the sheets next to the empty pillow, as if waiting for his love to crawl back in from fitful pacing. But his love had loved and lost another; another just like him. A disaster only the Uncharted Territories could think to dream up.

She spotted a few crumbs of distillate of laka on his bedside table, and pocketed them.

She had not made it twenty paces down the corridor towards her last stop before the cold metal hit the back of her neck. This was new. She bit back the shriek and leapt forward, spinning on her heels.

"What are you doing?"

She hadn't decided who had said it fastest. Chiana could barely see Aeryn's eyes over the pulse pistol. Her hands were still. It would have been frightening, if it were the first time.

"Why are you still up?" Chiana asked, pushing a finger against the open barrel and tilting it to the side.

"I could ask you the same."

"Couldn't sleep."

"So you decided theft was the alternative?"

"Beats boredom."

The weapon was sheathed. "What did you take?"

Chiana grinned, impish. "Why don't you have a go at finding it?" She skipped ahead down as Aeryn heaved a sigh behind her.

The chase was short. The sebacean's room was almost barren: no telling scrawls, no guns, no leathers, save for the coolant suit, pressed and cleaned for its return. The bed had a small dip in its fabrics that Chiana's fingers found still warm; Aeryn had not just been awake, she had been roused.

"Enough. I'll not have you digging through _my_ belongings, too."

"But I—"

"Out." It was a non-negotiable tone. Aeryn strode past her to stand guard, arms akimbo. Chiana took her time, smiling, gathering her bearings; her ear brushed against her shoulder as she sashayed towards the door and then, without pause, flicked all five fingers across the access switch and sealed them both back in.

"I changed my mind," she said as she backed against the bulkhead, "I'm not leaving." She crossed her ankles and watched Aeryn's jaw clench.

"I'm not just talk, you know." Her thumb grazed the end of the pulse pistol in its holster.

"Counting on it."

It could've been flirting if their eyes had met. But the ears had it, and Chiana was once again on the receiving end of all those perfected years of combat training. Slick as kaftan silk, her body arched and swept beneath the jutting elbow and she had a moment to contemplate whether to try and open the door or head further into the room. The latter, of course, meant the adventure would continue. Chiana dove for the warm spot on the bed, laughing, and brought Aeryn sprawling with her.

Moments of one-sided struggling later, the sebacean was on top of her, pinning her wrists down with her knees. A growl escaped, and Aeryn's hands were brusque, searching her for valuables. Chiana had no visible pockets to search; those fingers had to take their time. And time they took, frisking her from shoes to shoulders. It wasn't until Aeryn pilfered the stolen crumbs from the hidden pouch beneath her waistband that Chiana realized her eyes had been closed.

"Is this what I think it is?" She asked, waving it in front of her. Chiana was still focused on the pair of fingers hitched to her belt.

"Well, what do you think it is?"

"Crichton's dren. From the old woman."

"Bingo." Her smile drew upward from one side. "You wanna try some with me?"

"Absolutely not."

Chiana wriggled from beneath her captor and snatched back her prize. "Come on. It only lasts a couple hundred microts, anyway. It's barely a high—"

"It isn't a high, Chiana. It's deadening."

"It's an _aid_."

"I don't see an ailment."

"You could forget about Crichton for a little while."

"I don't..." The words rushed out before the thought caught up with her. She took a shaky breath. "I don't need to forget about Crichton."

The lie was a stunning armour; the woman beneath it almost disappeared. "Suit yourself." Chiana swung to her feet and slipped the distillate back in its hiding place. She felt Aeryn's eyes on her, icy and vacant. She left her like that.

The trek was as uneventful back as it was forward. John's door was still open; for an instant she thought of climbing in with him to sleep, but being mistaken in the morning would be suffering she did not wish upon anyone, least of all him.

Her toes turned away and drew her back to her bed where she sat, listless, her head hammering with unfinished notions. It was there that she did not move for almost an arn. Sleep would not claim her. She thought about D'Argo, about Nerri, about organic matrices, about the bright blue skies of Earth, the troubles back home; she listened for the deep hums of Moya, the absence of shouting, the silence of deep space. Through the open window, she could see out over the star they were nearing, its vivid colours only outmatched by the riotous storms on its surface. Her eyes tightened and stared.

And then, footsteps.

Before she could fully turn to the chamber lock, it had released, and a very tense sebacean crept in, squinting into the bright light. She closed the door behind her.

"How can you look at that for so long?" she asked.

"Doesn't bother me."

"Right. I forgot." Her voice was small. The woman herself looked small, without her weapon or her leathers. She was clad only in a simple undershirt and pants, wild hair spilled about her shoulders. Her cheeks weren't wet, but they had been. Chiana slid on the bed to give her room, but Aeryn did not move.

"What do you want?" Chiana asked. The question was gentle.

"I don't know."

The grey girl twisted her lips. "Well," she started, "maybe if you sit a minute, you'll figure it out."

Aeryn nodded, and took a seat next to her. The star caught their attention; its storms were swelling. One burst upward, sparks of lightning and dust and liquid spraying in every direction. Chiana felt the beginnings of a conversation, and opened her mouth to comment on it, but the startling sensation of being kissed pulled all other thoughts from fruition.

Careful, slow, deliberate, almost—dare she say it—sensory. Longer than a mistake, but shorter than a promise. She met Aeryn's eyes when they opened again, unable to interpret their charge. Chiana licked her lips and remained silent.

Aeryn tiptoed around her own voice. "I think... I might be using you."

"I'm probably the best choice for that."

"It just isn't like me."

"What isn't like you?" Chiana kept her fingers to herself, but leaned into her words, "We're all alone in here, Aeryn. You can do anything you want."

The sebacean took a deep breath, resolute, and slipped her fingers back across Chiana's waist, feeling for secrets. Chiana's abdomen quivered, but she did not flinch. The distillate of laka had been warming against her skin. Aeryn held it in front of her, her features contorting in a sort of scientific scrutiny. Much to Chiana's surprise, she inhaled it and tossed her head back without further pause. Her eyes rolled and then dilated.

"What does it feel like?" The younger asked, shedding her gloves.

Aeryn blinked. "Nothing."

"You don't feel any different?"

"No, it feels like nothing. I feel... vacant."

A smile threatened. "Can you feel this?" The nebari closed the gap between them and pressed her lips along Aeryn's neck.

"Mm," was the response. She felt the hum resonate.

"Good." The remainder of the distillate was set on the table. Another night, maybe. "Now, tell me what you want."

"A distraction," she replied, simply, "just for a little while."

"Now that I can help with."

Chiana danced with her eyes, taking in sights now permitted, preparing her mind for the care that was expected of her. This one didn't need the usual writhing or pandering or monotonous caterwauling; she suspected that Aeryn was blessed with plenty of that in her service. No, this would require something... else.

She intended to garner the _else_.

Chiana darted her tongue out to taste Aeryn's upper lip before shifting her body forward. Their mouths were supple, their kisses broad and adventurous. She could feel her centre of gravity pulling up, up towards her throat and sticking on silent praise as Aeryn pushed herself into the mould of her, unyielding. The aggression of those lips, that tongue, hands insisting at the back of her neck. She was growing dizzy.

Her mouth strayed back to Aeryn's neck again, tracing muscular lines with reverence, feeling the shudders, the clench and release. She dragged her fingernails through Aeryn's hair, watching it push into her peripherals and envelop her. The storms of the star shone through it. She inhaled it with purpose, the scented oils light, and could feel Aeryn smiling above her.

A smile. That was new.

She redoubled, taking greater mouthfuls of skin between her teeth, pushing errant cloth aside to unburden her journey. Aeryn's undershirt pooled around her waist, and her arms stretched high, catching on the wall next to the bed. Chiana's head bent and skirted around the edges of the pale ribcage in front of her. She felt a pair of fingers slip her under her chin and tilt upward.

"You don't have to do all that."

"All of what?" Chiana leaned back up to eye level and stilled, lips darting to Aeryn's ear.

"That. The... extra kissing."

"You don't like it?"

"I—" her breath hitched when Chiana tugged gently with her teeth, "I like it. It's just not necessary."

"You wanted a distraction, didn't you?" She trailed towards Aeryn's jaw, tongue glancing on the bone.

"Yes." She shivered.

"Then shut the frell up and let me distract you."

Chiana reached for Aeryn's hips and took hold, pushing their torsos together against the wall. She could feel softness through her clothes that entreated exploration, and Aeryn, leagues ahead, had already started on the laces. She felt a tugging at her back, felt her skin start to breathe, felt her eyes close and bare flesh press back against her. The bodice landed with a soft thud on the floor. Aeryn was cool to the touch; she wondered somewhere in the back of her mind if sebaceans exerted enough to sweat during bouts like this, or whether one licentious night could lead straight to heat delirium. She tried not to issue herself the challenge, and instead straddled Aeryn's lap and dipped her hands back in the ink of her hair. The air surrounding grew humid as their breath mingled between feverish kisses, and the brunette's fingers slipped beneath that waistband again, from the side this time, sliding round the back to grip at the flesh there. Chiana's hips ground unwittingly forward and up, her face tipping above Aeryn's, their necks wrenching to keep their mouths sealed. The stretch elicited a groan from each of them.

Chiana was up on her knees astride Aeryn's legs on the small bed, the top of her head against the wall looking down. Liquid fire melted across her skin as the sebacean's kisses descended past her neck and collarbone to her sternum where they lingered, crossed, and lingered again. Chiana expanded her chest wide as she breathed, deep and steady, and Aeryn rode the wave with grace, hands ghosting at the small of her back. Her tongue darted out to taste the skin, the heady texture at each peak, and Chiana tingled with delight, her forehead rolling against the metal.

Without thinking, Chiana began to growl, low and sinister at the base of her breath, her fingers tracing patterns over her own ribcage and across her breasts where she grasped and palmed, leaning back towards the open room behind her and swaying against Aeryn's arms. The brunette stopped what she was doing, and Chiana opened her eyes to see that she was watching her, eyes dark and sharpening. Startled, Chiana's froze and dropped back to the linens.

Aeryn frowned. "What's the matter?"

"I didn't mean to..."

"To what?"

"Do that."

"What?"

"With my hands."

"You didn't?" Her eyebrows knitted together, confused. "I was rather enjoying it."

The question was posed with her eyes: a mixture of befuddlement and desire. It was an undertaking determining which might've won out.

Aeryn breathed a half-laugh. "You know, believe it or not, Chiana, I am not quite so self-centric as you make me out to be." She adjusted herself beneath the nebari's thighs to get a better look at her. "I'm about as visual as you are tactile."

"You're just saying that."

"You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" Aeryn clasped her hands around Chiana's wrists and guided them back to her skin, settling back against the wall to watch as she relented, fingers beginning their dance once more. Aeryn's eyes, when Chiana dared meet them, glittered with triumph.

This woman had set her free.

Chiana felt bold. Terribly, wickedly bold.

She extricated herself from the embrace and started to unceremoniously tug off the rest of Aeryn's clothing: pants, holsters, boots; somehow in the midst of it all she found the rest of her own clothes on the floor with them. It did not take the rush of cold or the unforgiving light of the stormy star to bring their bare skins flush again; each knew, without saying, that the settling cinders of long dormant thoughts had been kindled with those deft hands and inebriating kisses, and they were in no rush to snuff it out.

When they parted, Aeryn stretched long and languid on the bed atop the sheets, her bare breasts swaying with each contortion, bathed in a sheen of silvery white. Her companion crawled to straddle her hips again, one slender leg slipping between them. She did so enjoy the position of control, as much as the sebacean's roving hands finding every sweet spot on the way to their destination was undoing the entire notion of control at all; or the way the corner of her lip would catch between her teeth as her smile drew to the side; or the breathless sebacean curse that slipped free when she tried to grind rebelliously against the warm slickness settling against her thigh. Aeryn threaded her fingers back into the nebari's hair, pulling her down to the bed, and Chiana's victorious grin was swallowed by another searing kiss.

There was a metallic edge to her taste, something that penetrated those perfunctory ministrations and kept her subconscious murmuring over and over, _this is different, this is different_.

It was then that the _else_ occurred to her. Aeryn did not need a mate, or a lover, or a partner. She had all of those things, more or less. She needed a friend. A friend with dextrous fingers, and nothing to gain. Now _that_, she could provide.

A charge travelled up her spine and she flexed into it, hips hitting second gear and her fingernails searching for flesh to sink into. She could feel her own life force thrumming; could feel her body offering as much as it demanded as she arched and grasped at Aeryn's shoulders. Aeryn rolled upward to her tempo, bending at the knee to offer new and intoxicating angles. That friction, that sweet friction, whether it was her own pacing or the cresting waves of the woman's thighs, was... was just...

"Chiana," she thought she heard below her. It did not sound like the idiosyncratic murmur of her name. Attention, attention. She groaned an acknowledgement.

"I think the laka is wearing off."

Chiana slowed and tilted her head towards the bedside table. "Do you want some more?"

She felt a pause in Aeryn's breathing. "No."

"Do you want to stop?"

"Frell no."

The reply was immediate enough to cause Chiana to cease and look back over at her. Aeryn's eyes were layered in expression; she was bubbling over, betrayed by her own sincerity. Panic darted across the arches of her eyebrows, but they only quivered once, and then subsided. Subdued, perhaps, by years of practice and technique, by reticence and ritual. Or perhaps by something deeper, and more secret; a revelation, answers sought and found when she met the black recesses of the grey girl's eyes. Chiana could not tell. She closed the gap and nipped along her neck.

"Good," she whispered against her ear, and felt Aeryn's fear exhale.

_And I'd do anything to make you stay  
>No light, no light<br>Tell me what you want me to say_


End file.
